DayZ creator Dean Hall rumoured to be on his way to the UK - not New Zealand
UPDATE: Dean Hall says nope.
UPDATE: Dean Hall has denied a report that claimed he planned to move to the UK to work at a London-based technology company.
"I'm not moving to the UK," he told Eurogamer over email. "Not enough hobbits, I'm afraid."
This morning UK trade website MCV said Hall was "set to move to the UK" to work with Improbable.
What we believe is the case is that Hall may use Improbable's new tech on a future game. It seems, then, that the DayZ creator will move back home to New Zealand as planned.
ORIGINAL STORY 11.55am: DayZ creator Dean Hall will move to the UK to work at a London technology firm called Improbable, according to a new report.
MCV reports Hall will join up with former Crytek general manager Nick Button-Brown at Improbable, which uses the tagline: "Experimental Technology. New kinds of online games."
The news comes as some surprise given Hall had said he planned to move back home to New Zealand at the end of the year to make a "Valve in the South Pacific".
In June Hall told Eurogamer he had already started hiring people for his new studio, and that it had a name. "I do have a name but I haven't registered the trademark so I don't want to say what it is," he told us. "It's got Rocket in it, I'll say that much."
In February 2014 Hall revealed his intention to leave Czech Republic studio Bohemia and step down as leader of DayZ at the end of the year.
DayZ began life as a mod for military simulation Arma 2, but has since gone on to top the Steam charts as a standalone Early Access title.
So what do we know about Improbable? Its website states: "We want to enable new experiences in gaming. To remove existing constraints we solve technical problems with implications beyond games."
Then: "Improbable is a hybrid art and engineering culture where novel technology, creativity and product development feed and inspire each other."
It sounds like a company that's working to improve things like simulations and artificial intelligence in video games.
A Wired profile on the studio published in May said it had attracted developers, animators and artists from the likes of Fable maker Lionhead, Ubisoft and Total War and Alien: Isolation developer Creative Assembly.
It was set up and funded by 26-year-old Herman Narula. He's the son of a billionaire construction mogul, so has plenty of cash to get the company off the ground. "You could have a Call of Duty experience with an entire army," Narula told Wired. "You can have hundreds of thousands of entities in the world with a simulated city with traffic infrastructure."
Perhaps that's why Hall - reportedly - was interested in the project. Back in June he said his grand plan was to continue to focus on multiplayer games - but, he said, his first post-DayZ title would be a single-player only Tycoon style game for PC and Linux.
Where this all leaves that game and Hall's plan to start a studio in New Zealand remains to be seen.
Button-Brown declined to comment when contacted by Eurogamer, and Hall is yet to comment.
